[Matt]

Date: February 10, 2018 Destination: Oakes 5681 and "Acorn" 4724 (USGS Damnation) People: Matt, Carla, GeoTom, Cartman, Elle, Barb, David, Steph Dogs: Isabel Oakes is a premier winter view scramble. It's 5000 feet uphill off trail, and has an open view only on top, but what a view! Ranges of dramatic peaks run on both sides – the Diobsud-Bacon crest above Bacon creek to the west, and the Big Devil crest above the Skagit River to the east. And right in the center stands the bold spire of Triumph, like an exclamation point for the entire area. But what about Acorn? Acorn was a side trip to a smaller peak solely for the sake of visiting a new summit. But it did have some interesting views up the Skagit valley.

The Diobsud-Bacon crest

The Triumph crest

The Big Devil Crest (I once ran a traverse with Torok across the whole group, starting from Monogram Lake and ending at Newhalem)

Triumph

GPS Track

The Oakes route begins from the Bacon Creek Road, just after crossing Oakes Creek (about 2.75 miles up the road). From there it's just uphill through the forest, veering somewhat left to stay on the crest and out of the Oakes Creek valley. There's some brush at the start, but most of it is fairly open forest with mossy ground.

Hiking up through the mossy forest

Around 3500 feet we crossed the first logging road and switched to snowshoes. The snow-plastered buttes east of us began appearing through the thinning clouds.

Diobsud & Logger materialize out of the clouds

Electric & Bacon emerge also

Turning uphill off the road. Oakes on the left. Acorn ahead on the right.

Higher up we worked around the edges of a few steeper glades, which also brought views east to the Big Devil crest and south down the Skagit River.

Snowy higher slopes

Steep trees

The Big Devil crest comes into view

Long view back down the Skagit and all the way out to Whitehorse

And finally the open summit brought us the climax view of Triumph thrusting its steep spire upward.

Party ahead on the summit

Triumph comes into view

Tom coming up the last slope

With open views and warm sunshine, everyone just wandered around alternating between eating snacks, identifying peaks, and posing for photos.

Enjoying the sunny summit

Lunch and photograph

Me above the Bacon Creek crest

Me with Triumph and friends

sunny winter summit

Eric arriving

Some of the surrounding peaks (generally clockwise from west to east)

Diobsud Butte

Logger Butte

Electric Butte

Bacon

Baker

Hagan & Blum

Despair

Triumph & Thornton

Pyramid, Pinnacle, Paul Bunyan's Stump, Colonial, Snowfield

A full range of North Cascades emotion in this photo: Mystery, Challenge, Damnation, Fury, Terror, Despair, Triumph

While the rest of the group sensibly relaxed and enjoyed the summit, I hurried off to visit Acorn, Point 4724 down southeast from Oakes. My path followed our tracks down to about 4800 feet, angled over to the col at 4300, then went across several small false summits to finally reach Acorn. I thought the travel would be viewless, but it provided some nice perspective back up the valley, especially the view straight on to the south prow of Triumph.

Looking down on Acorn from Oakes

Looking back at Oakes & Damnation from Acorn

the route we took up the "easy" side of Triumph

Acorn's summit itself provided a pretty good perspective up the Skagit, and sadly also the Newhalem burn.

Looking up the Skagit

The Newhalem fire burn

Cool rippled snow patterns across the valley on Big Devil

To exit, I returned to the Oakes-Acorn col, and was able to follow an easy snow-covered stream bed down to one of the roads at 4000 feet and regain our uphill tracks. Lower down in the woods, the key thing was to keep veering left of the fall line in order to not get in the steep messy sidewalls of Oakes Creek. I needed the headlamp only for the last thousand feet.

Last sunlight in the trees

Oakes round trip: 8 miles, 5000 gain, 8:15 hours. Acorn side trip: add 2.6 miles, 700 gain, 2 hours.

[Fletcher]

I did Oakes back in December, with a good forecast, but we were stuck in a white-out all day. Thanks for the views!

[BarbE]

[RichP]

Great looking outing. I wonder how those logging roads that reach high up would go for a summer ascent?

[BarbE]

Wouldn't it be sweet if you could drive to about 4300' and stroll another 1400' to the summit!

[wildernessed]

[Matt]

[Fletcher]

I tend to recall that when we did it, with a lot less snow, it was fairly apparent that those roads were being inundated with brush.

[Yana]

I'm concerned about the human to dog ratio of this trip.

[Matt]

Yana is correct. One dog is worth about ten humans, so Izzy has us outnumbered.

[Nancyann]

It looks like a fine group of NWHikers out having a great time. Gorgeous, absolutely stunning pictures!

[iron]

[puzzlr]

Thanks for all the labelled panos. What a day!

[Michael Lewis]

like it. i can almost feel the snow underfoot

[neek]

Did Oakes today. Great winter hike, thanks for the inspiration. We had to walk most of the road because there's snow on it now and we didn't have high clearance. Snowshoes went on around 2500'. Things were fairly sloppy toward the top, no surprise.